Transcript of the Daily Press conversation with area athletic directors concerning VHSL reorganization

Q: Is realignment and having schools of strictly similar sizes play each other in state tournaments a good thing?

Barner: Yeah, I think it’s a good thing, but I think it was that way before, except for schools like Phoebus and Bruton that choose to play up. That was their choice. It was (similar) schools before.

Peters: I agree. I think it was pretty well set. It’s like the old saying goes, “If it’s not broke, why try to fix it?” They could’ve tweaked and made little adjustments here and there, but I didn’t see anything wrong with the way the system was before.

Q: Why do you think the system was changed?

Peters: I think it had to do with money and some of the smaller schools in the western part of the state were feeling they weren’t getting a fair shot at state championships. When they did the voting, there are 314 public schools, and in AAA (largest schools) 95 percent of them voted against this and there are 90-something AAA schools, so we’re always going to get outvoted.

Barner: Single A (smallest schools) we knew was all for it. The Bay Rivers (of the middle sized AA classification) voted against it, and until they took the vote we didn’t know which way the vote was going. Then it wasn’t even close.

After they voted (for it), there’s an athletic director who used to be at (Williamsburg-area) Toano Middle School and is now out in the western part of the state. Once they figured out what was going to happen, they weren’t happy but it was too late.

Peters: We in AAA brought up at one point to let’s delay it, not rush it and get away from the emergency legislation and let people digest what’s going on.

Barner: If you remember they tried to do this eight years ago, and the reason that it did not pass is that nobody wanted to break up their district. So what they did (this time) is tell us you don’t have to break up your districts, but they know darn well that’s going to happen.

Q: Along that line. Do you feel that the VHSL could’ve done this realignment, kept the districts intact without conferences, and found a way to seed and bracket people into the regionals? Or are conferences a good thing?

Peters: They could’ve done it without the conferences, because they’re doing it for football (in Groups 1-4, where seeding is mostly done on the regional level) right now. They have six classifications set up right now, and they’ve could’ve done it for every other sport.

Barner: Surely some guy who runs those (VHSL) computers could’ve come up with something where you put the scores in the next day and (seeding or bracketing) points (for regional play) are (calculated) in there.

Q: Show of hands. How many of you would’ve liked to keep districts and had seeding into the regionals without this new beast called “Conferences.”

All six athletic directors indicated they would’ve liked to keep districts and district tournaments (which no longer exist) and eliminate conferences.

Martin: Just think of the rivalries were going to lose. District tournaments, I mean we’d sell out. The Kecoughtan-Hampton, the game going into the tournament was the most we had for the entire tournament. And now, we’re not even going to have that. Kecoughtan and Hampton are never going meet in the playoffs or district tournament. That whole thing is going.

You’re going to lose revenue and you’re going to lose rivalries. Hopefully you can generate some new rivalries but who knows if that’s going to happen with the distances traveled.

Q: Seven conferences (Peninsula and Bay Rivers districts) will be playing their tournaments. What will that do to attendance and for that matter media coverage.

Barner: Our Bruton (boys basketball tournament) game took in $1,800. That’s a good night for a (Group AA) school. You play Colonial Heights and you’re not going to get $1,000. And you’ve got the travel fee you’re going to pay.

Martin: It’s a regular season economic issue, too. Unless we make ourselves play each other (twice in basketball) – Hampton, Phoebus, Bethel, Kecoughtan – those are big money makers (for Hampton City Schools) which help fund next year’s athletic programs.

If we lose that, the school system is losing that money coming in.

Peters: We solved our (problem). We’re playing each of the district (only) teams once and our Conference (18) teams twice.

Bennett: You (have to) take us 3-1/2 hours to Park View-South Hill and it’s another haul, 2-1/2 hours to Colonial Heights in our Conference (25).

Martin: I know the AD in Hampton is having trouble finding JV games. My JV schedule is full because we’re doing a JV schedule for our conference, but theirs is not. I don’t have any extra JV games, Where are they going to find them?

Barner: Another big problem I have with this is the class time kids are going to miss in some of these sports. Not necessarily in football. But these other sports, If Southampton has to go to Loudoun County (for a regional game), they won’t get back until 2 in the morning. I don’t know what they’re thinking.

Q: Realistically when conference tournaments start, how long do you see the Peninsula and Bay Rivers districts lasting.

Barner: I see (them lasting only) this cycle and next (four years).

Peters: I’d say in five years the (Peninsula) district’s going to be gone.

Price: I think two. Your coaches are already wondering why are we (playing in the district). It means nothing. It has nothing to do with postseason. Why can’t I just open my schedule?

Bennett: I have a problem with that and I’ve fought in our district and will continue until I go down dying, because, if (a conference rather than district schedule) happens, some schools are going to go out of business. Therefore you’re going to lose members in the Virginia High School League.

Peters: What do you in two years with Heritage? Our enrollment is right on the borderline of going to a (Group) 3 (Heritage is currently Group 4). In two years, it means I’ve got to get a whole new schedule

Barner: You’ll have to change every two years. We’re on the bottom (of Group 3). I could be with Bruton (in Group 2) in the next cycle.

Peters: We figured out (before realignment) we were going to three meetings a month. Now, we’re doing six or seven meetings a month now versus three.

Barner: In our regional meetings they’re coming from Loudoun County.

Q: Is the impracticality of going to six or seven meetings a month versus two or three another factor that could kill the districts quickly?

Martin: It’s the travel alone for these meetings. And you have to go to them, because decisions are being made on scheduling and officials. Officials are all calling now (asking) “Do we get to do your conference games?” In our conference what we’re doing is, wherever the host school is, we use their officials.

Bennett: That’s economic. If you get into travel fees for them, you’re talking about a lot of money. And we already know those conference tournaments aren’t going to draw a lot of revenue. So it’s not going to offset that travel fee if you start shipping officials.

Barner: The bottom line is that I think every school’s going to lose money and every school is going to be doing more work and putting out more money for travel. (Peninsula District schools) playing rivalry games only once is going to be a huge (revenue) loss for you.

Q: This year are you still going to have a Peninsula District and Bay Rivers District champion?

Barner: Just regular season (in the Bay Rivers District).

Peters: (Peninsula District) is not doing (championship) trophies.

Q: Will you select all-district teams?

Peters: We are not selecting (Peninsula) all-district teams.

Bennett: There are no more (Bay Rivers) all-district teams.

Dwayne Peters mentioned that there will be all-conference teams. He immediately pointed out the absurdity of this in a six-team conference (Conference 17) in which there are three Peninsula District and three Southeastern District schools, none of which are scheduled to play one another in football.

Peters: My coaches may never even have seen (fellow Conference 17 member) Lakeland play football. How are you going to vote for a kid you’ve never seen play?

Martin: In football, why aren’t we doing all-district still? That’s who we see. In the conference (Conference 2) we’re not going to see Oscar Smith, Grassfield and Western Branch, and they’re not going to see us.

Barner: All those things are why we’ll lose the districts and we’ll all lose. It’s going to cost us more to travel, cost us more in time of our jobs and the principals’ jobs. It’s going to take in less money.

Q: Is this (realignment) a done deal or is there a possibility in two years Virginia High School League membership will say “Wait a minute!?”

Secession! One athletic director joked or perhaps half-joked.

Martin: Our (Eastern) region talked about pulling away from the VHSL. I was involved in a conference call with the Northern Region about us pulling away.

Q: Going through the process, how much culture shock has it been meeting up with other districts and regions?

Peters: In our region you have the Bay Rivers District, the Peninsula District and (schools from the Richmond area) Central Region. You have three different areas that do things three different ways. Try getting everybody on the same page. We all have to compromise, but sometimes that’s harder than it sounds.

Martin: (Among the) logistic issues we have to deal with in the City of Hampton, we’ve always been able leave whenever we schedule (the teams) do that. In Chesapeake they have two options: You can leave at a half a day or you can leave at 4 o’clock.

So if you have to leave for a 4:30 baseball game, they have to take a half day off, maybe leave at 12:30 and sit in my auditorium for two hours. Then you have a late storm and then you come back home.

Peters: We’re used to playing field hockey games at 4 o’clock. Because of the Suffolk schools we’re not starting games until 5:30.

Before, when I played field hockey at Kecoughtan, I was taking JV and varsity on one bus. Now when I play Kings Fork (of Suffolk), I’m going there on one bus and their JV’s coming to me.

Barner: You’re doubling your busses. Here again you’re going to take in less money and the kids are going to be hurt. How much time are kids going to miss class? Park View South Hill could play a volleyball game at Poquoson on a Tuesday and at York on a Thursday night and not get home until 1:30 in the morning. Kids go to school one day and the next day they have to do it again.

Q: What are the different things have you had to do to make this happen and did they give you the time to make these administrative things happen.

Barner: Handbooks. You have three different districts that have three different ways of going about it.

Peters: You have the conference handbook, now the new regional handbook and a new (state) handbook. So now you’ve got three new handbooks and we all do things different.

Price: There are no consistent game times and it’s different from what we do in the district. We play each other (in the Peninsula District) at (one) time, but if we play Oscar Smith (in Conference 2) it’s at (another) time.

Peters: If you check my schedule online, I have little asterisk for a conference game that starts at 5:30 and a star for a district game that starts at 4.

DP: It’s hard to not see that the football playoffs have been watered down. Now, there will be 3-7 teams in the playoffs. And you’ll have first-round games that will be something like 70-0.

Peters: That’s very possible.

Martin: That’s a huge waste of money, to send a team (on the road) that’s going to get crushed.

Peters: The AD at Glen Allen said, they can probably win two games and make (the playoffs). But he’s be seeded 16th and be playing a Lake Taylor. He said, “Do I want to bring my team all the way down there and get beat 70-0? No. Will I do it? Yes.” Because he has to.

Barner: When your transportation guy sees these budgets and tells the superintendent, and then the finance guy says “We’re not bringing in the money we used to be bringing in for the big football games,” and they all get together, it could be down the road that the superintendents say, “Oh, no. Time out.” That could happen.

Peters: When I first started seven years ago, our transportation athletic budget was close to $500,000. Now it’s down to like $260,000. And that’s between five high schools, now. So they’ve cut us back big time. And now we have to travel further and bring in less money.

DP: You mentioned early that one of the reasons why the VHSL did this was money. Where’s the money going to be made and who will get it?

Peters: The state semifinals and finals, the VHSL gets the money. Our 4A South championship game is a state semifinal game. The region does not get that money like it is today. Now, the 4A semifinal game — it could be Lake Taylor and Phoebus or whatever it may be — that money goes to the Virginia High School League.

DP: Speaking of money, what happens basketball games that used to be at Scope? Is Scope in play for any of the conference games?

Peters: Five out of the six conferences down here in the Eastern Region want to. (Conferences) 1 and 2, 9 and 10 and 17 are using Scope for their conference championship games. My conference, 18, we are not. We’re going to do it at King’s Fork High School.

Price: We went just the opposite because it costs me more to run the Peninsula District championship game at Woodside than it would for me to do the conference championship game at Scope for this one year. We have a rental fee at Scope for this one year of $1,000, and they only put us on a one-year contract.

Bennett: Our conference thought more about travel so we tried to base different championships at locations all around our conferences. So Park View-South Hill didn’t have to come here for every single conference championship.

We did some A-B sites depending on if there were two schools from that side or two schools from this side. We had two sites designed. If a majority of the schools are from this side, it comes to A. If a majority are from that side, it goes to B. It’s to try to generate revenue.

Price: Each conference has a different final time. One Wednesday, one Thursday, one Friday, one early Saturday, and we got the late Saturday slot.

DP: It seems like this all happened so fast. Why, and what would it have done if you could have gotten another year to organize this?

Peters: We asked for more time at the VHSL meetings last October. Our regional chairman, the principal from Oscar Smith, got up and said, “Give us time to work on it.” And they said, basically, no, you have until June 30.

Martin: We didn’t know what questions we would have. A lot of the questions we have now we’ve found out as we go along, like sharing the same facilities.

Peters: Before, the Eastern Region, we used Scope. Now, you have Conference 1, 2, 5, 6, they all want to get Scope for their conference games. But Scope only has so much time and space. I know William and Mary was involved for a while but they have their games they have to schedule.

Martin: In field hockey, with Conferences 2, 10 and 18, I’m in charge for 2, (Denbigh’s Bryan) Weaver is in charge for 18, and Gloucester is in charge for 10. And all three of us are looking at CNU. How do you get three tournaments in one week? Those are some of the logistical things when this got pushed on us.

Barner: One of the things that has really changed in the last seven years, everything once upon a time in meetings was a paddle vote. You’d get these paddles and you’d hold them up. There are very, very, very few paddle votes anymore. What’s happened is, the executive committee gets together and kind of dictates. And I really believe representatives from the executive committee do not really get with people, specially with SOLs and all principals have to do anymore.

Peters: You have superintendents on the executive committee, and some of them are clueless when it comes to athletics. That’s what they have athletic people for.

Barner: And if you’re Ken tilley, you’re going to that meeting and you’ll give them all the reasons why it will work — fairness and size of play, all those things. And they say, yeah. Then they hand it to you — they already had a vote — and you don’t have time to do anything. And it’s over. It’s done.

DP: So how did this get passed?

All: Emergency session.

DP: Which means it didn’t go through membership?

Peters: It did come up before the general membership in October. It did do that. But by that time everybody was so confused.

Price: And it took 66 percent to overturn.

Barner: Triple-A wanted to overturn it. Single-A did not. It came down to Double-A. We went into the meeting figuring it would be close, but it wasn’t. The Bay Rivers District voted like Triple-A did, and a couple others like Powhatan, Courtland, Chancellor, James Monroe, voted (with us).

Bennett: But the Roanoke area and the western part of the state, the Double-As, offset (that).

Peters: Almost 70 percent of the student body is in Triple-A schools. We get one vote. There’s a school that has 130 students in it. They get one vote just like West Springfield in Northern Virginia, which has 3,600 students.

DP: This might seem overly dramatic, but can you see the VHSL basically not existing in a few years?

Barner: It can happen. When these transportation budgets go up and the money they take in goes down, the amount of time kids are missing school, parents complaining “Hey, my kid doesn’t get home until 2 o’clock in the morning,” when all that starts hitting, who knows what is going to happen?

Peters: We’ll be getting asked why we do this? Why are we in this situation? We voted against it. But they told us we had to do it.

DP: It’s obvious the impetus behind this was basketball and football. Why couldn’t they have just made changes in basketball and football instead of uprooting the whole system? Or is it impossible to do it for two sports?

Barner: But why do they want to do it at all? They have six divisions in football. You could have had six divisions in basketball. But they didn’t want teams playing up. If districts are OK with it, if the schools are OK, why not?

Phoebus for you guys and Bruton for us, they feel it’s worth that because of the rivalry, you know each other, travel, you get along. I come from Pennsylvania, and the ADs in Virginia get along way, way better than they do in Pennsylvania.

Peters: There’s a school in the Charlottesville area, I won’t name it, the AD fought to have it changed. She wanted this, the greatest thing since slice bread …

Barner: Albemarle.

Peters: And now she’s against it.

Barner: Nobody had time to think. The executive committee did it, they voted, they brought it to us. You had a 20-minute time to debate it and vote. They wanted to fix travel up for teams in the western part of the state. Now, they’ve messed it up for the majority.

DP: So if membership voted on this today, do you think it would be voted down?

Barner: Single-A would say with it, I think. I think Double-A would change their mind.

Peters: I think so, it would be probably voted down.

DP: So two years from now, can you guys call a vote and try to do away with it?

Peters: Someone from membership can bring it up in front of the executive committee, who then has to bring it in front of the general (body).

DP: And then it would have to be a two-thirds vote to overturn?

Peters: Yes.

Barner: It would take a number of superintendents in the state to go to the state department and say, we are not doing this. We are losing money. Our kids are losing tremendous amounts of class time.

Bennett: I don’t think everybody has time to ask theirselves the one reason we would do this: Is this best for the kids? We didn’t have time to ask ourselves that over and over. The one reason we have this occupation, and we couldn’t make that decision.

Barner: And I’m telling you right now, it’s not.

Peters: It was passed so quickly when it was thrown to us. They were saying, “You knew about it for two years. Yes, but we were never explained the whole situation. It was pieces here and then, you have to vote on it now.

DP: What do the Single-A people like about it?

Barner: It was about their travel.

Peters: Plus, they get more of a chance to get a state championship. Their smaller schools can have a state championship.

Bennett: They sold it because they piloted in football. And obviously in Single-A football, if you pilot it that way, it generates revenue. Now, all of a sudden, Single-A sees revenue, which they don’t see very much of. So that kind of sold that whole group.

Barner: We’ve been decent in Division 3 football. But if we have to go to Loudoun County to play a regional game, people in Williamsburg aren’t going. I’m telling you right now. They won’t go. And I can’t see Loudoun County people coming down to Wanner Stadium, either. So the regional budgets aren’t going to be as lucrative as they used to be. Then what are you going to do?

Price: I live in Williamsburg and people up there, my kids go to Jamestown they’r like, we gotta play Photbus, we’re not going down to Phoebus to watch a game.

Bennett: That’s the other reason. I said, is it best for the kids? We never got time to talk about the culture shock between difference cultures we work in because we all know our schoosl are a culture. That’s why we fought for the district. Yal’’ culture in the district is sort of the same in your district. That’s what makes it nice. Everybody understands. Now we’re gonna go to different places and the culture’s gonna be different.

DP: Our coaches wonder why are we still doing district play? It doesn’t mane anythingI’d rather play Lakeland a couple of times, schools that are in our region that I’m gonna meet in the playoffs.

Barner: Some of our coaches are saying it, and as time goes on, they’ll all be saying it.

Bennett: I explained it in my coaches meeting like this. Other than football, you have 20 scrimmages to play to win 2 games. You win two games, you go to the next level. I’m still in coaching and that’s the way I’m gonna coach. I’ve got 20 games to figure out who the best nine players are.

Price: The big district games aren’t going to be anywhere near as big.

Peters: The Hampton-Phoebus football is still probably going to draw just because of the rivalry, but it’s just for bragging rights. As time goes on, it’s going to dwindle.

DP: Now In baskeball, two teams go from each conference? How do you decide that?

Peters: We’re doing a conference schedule, then we’re going a conference tournament. Top two teams from the regular season get byes. So 3-6 4-5 will play. 1 will play 4 2 will probably play 3, and the winners go on to the regional tournament.

Our conference went with playing a conference schedule only for seeding purposes in the tournament. Say Heritage baseball went 9-0 in conference play. That does not get me into the regional tournament. I can go into the conference tournament and get beat the first round, and I’m done. Eventually I think our conference will go to a conference schedule like we do now with the winner going to the regional.

Price: We’re going the same thing this year.

Bennett: I’m going to fight that, doing a conference regular season because I can’t afford it.

Barner: Grafton and them want to do it.

Bennett: It benefits Grafton to win their conference.

Price: You win 22 straight games, then your best player is hurt and you lose, you’re done.

Price: I can see our conference maybe next year, the regular-season winner going on to the regional.

Bennett: Then it will be interesting because who trumps, the district or the conference? If our district says you have to play our 20-game schedule, it’s going to be hard for them to do that [play a conference schedule] … Who trumps?

Peters: To get to the playoffs you have to have a conference schedule for seeding purposes because of the difference levels.

We have 4-5-6, you have 2-3-4.

DP: You don’t have a conference schedule.

Barner: We have a formula.

Bennett: We have a non-football power rating formula for all sports.

Peters: When I play Denbigh and Phoebus twice in basketball, the first time is a district and conference game. The second time is conference only.

Barner: Success of this thing will come down to three things, money in, money out, class time missed by kids. That’s what superintendents and principals will judge us on. The competition has always been there, so it’s not a matter of (jumble).

Peters: The superintendent from the Eastern Region is from Chesapeake City Schools. He represented the Eastern Region for Triple-A schoolsand he would go up there and vote no. These other superintendents from other parts of the state … Ken Tilley sold them, so we’re gonna vote for it.

Barner: Money out, money in, class time missed. We all have a lot of kids that are good academically. We also know in sports have a lot of kids that academically struggle. Sports helps them, obviously, but how is sports gonna help them now if they’re missing classes? It could be outrageous how much class time is missed.

Peters: Like Northern Virginia, they said in their meetings to go 20 miles could take you two hours.

Peters: You’ll build some new rivalries, some new ones but not like it is.

DP: You could build a new rivalry, then in two years, it’s gone.

Peters: I could build a rivalry with Nansemond River in sports because they’re in our conference. In two years, that’s gone.

Bennett: In two years, they’ll look at the ADM (average daily membership) numbers and poof …

Peters: Newport News … Hampton, we could have three state champions in football. Hampton could have 3 state champions in football. York county could have, what two, three state champions in football.

Barner: We could have a 2 and 3 with Bruton.

Peters: That sold a lot of these other school districts. We can have state championships with this new format without thinking ‘what will it cost me.’ ….

Bennett: It’s going to make scheduling . If we go to conference, it will make scheduling very difficult. For us, it has been relatively easy. We have 20 games, pick up a couple of games. ….. travel-wise how you choose to or competitive-wise, how you choose to. Now we won’t have that luxury.

Peters: That one division with Hampton, like I said, they aren’t doing a JV schedule so they are struggling. for JV games. Our district says JVs cannot play in any tournament. That’s a district policy. Hampton called, can they play in a JV Christmas tournament. By our district’s policy, no you cannot. That’s in the hanBarnerook.

Now they have to fill their schedule. They might play each other again,

Bennett: If they have 9 JV basketball games and that kid has to choose between playing on his AAU team or that JV basketball team, where do you think he’s going to play? “I can go away 22 weekends and play here, here and here, and not even worry about the high school any more. “

Peters: Baseball, you play 9 JV games versus 18. I’m gonna go play with that AAU team.

We have a JV schedule. We have 17 JV games, I can find 3 which is not hard, no problem. Basketball is no problem, I can find those.

Bennett: We didn’t get a chance to ask, is this best for the kids?

Peters: That’s why our conference went with a conference schedule with JVs.

Peters: That’s why the Virginia High School League went to the year-round practicing now because a lot of the coaches were complaining that AAU was taking their kids because we can’t practice, they’re teaching them wrong and we don’t like this and this. The Virginia High School League went to year-round practice rule to eliminate that.

Barner: As you can see, a lot of question marks. More question marks than answers right now.

Price: Every time we meet, more questions.

Bennett: I’m our conference field hockey chairman. We get move from our conference to 4A North , in this multiple state champions. We don’t even know who the region person is or how they’re going to seed it. Haven’t been to a meeting, but I’ve got two teams going there.

Barner: Ken Tilley told me this at the indoor state track meet at Liberty. Two years ago, like schools will play each other. So I asked him not to long ago, not happening in swimming. Really, all you did was was football, basketball, baseball and soccer. All the others have combinations. You’re not playing like schools for state championships.